


A Moment In Time

by Talithax



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Doubt, Established Relationship, Ficlet, M/M, Missing Scene, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 04:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11177349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talithax/pseuds/Talithax
Summary: ~ Ficlet~ Missing scene from Rogue Nation.  (Set after the scene in the bar in Morocco)





	A Moment In Time

**Author's Note:**

> ~ Narrated by Ethan & Self-Beta'd

==============  
A Moment In Time  
by TalithaX  
==============

 

“You know, Ethan, you're lucky I've got a thick skin,” Luther drawls as, letting the door close behind him, he folds his arms across his chest and leans back against the dirty tiles of the bathroom wall.

“What?” In no mood for, let's be totally honest here, anything that requires actual thought or effort on my part, let alone for Luther being all cryptic, I shake my head and, as is the running theme for the day, immediately wish that I hadn't. “Uh... Forget it. I don't want to know,” I add through gritted teeth as, unable to cope with the intricate patterns that make up the brilliantly coloured mosaics covering half of the bathroom in my current, befuddled state, I close my eyes and hold on to the edge of the basin in the hope of remaining upright.

Without going into either the details as to why I happen to feel this way, or even the varying in intensity aches and pains emanating from just about my entire body, I feel like shit. I hurt all over, my heartbeat, not that I'm going to share this with anyone, is erratic, and I don't know how I'm even going to keep it together in the coming hours, let alone drag my battered hide all the way to London without letting it be known to all and sundry that, hey, as it happens I really am merely human after all. I'm good at persevering, and despite not wanting to blow my own trumpet I know my acting skills are second to none, but come on! I've had a bad day. The sort of day, even, that would see most – normal – people wanting to immediately take to bed and pull the covers over their head.

But, no.

I have to soldier on. I have to put the – far-too-close-for-comfort – near death experience and the unfortunate incident of falling off a motorbike at high speed behind me, and just suck it up, basically. Putting my physical needs first can't even enter the equation, not when I'm the closest I've ever been to unravelling The Syndicate and, needing to keep the momentum rolling, and I just have to keep moving.

Can't stop. Can't dwell on the pain or the fact that, albeit momentarily, less than an hour ago I was actually dead. Can't...

… Differentiate between fact and fiction.

Maybe...

I don't know.

Maybe none of this is real. Maybe I really am dead and this is my odd version of an afterlife? Alternatively, perhaps I'm unconscious in a hospital somewhere and all of this is nothing more than an elaborate, painfully realistic dream.

I just...

I honestly don't know.

Near death experiences and pain aside, it just...

… Strikes me as unbelievable.

Not real. A malicious joke played on me by my, as much physically as mentally, damaged psyche. Wishful, delusional thinking. Impossible. Proof that my brain was deprived of oxygen for too long or that I hit my head far harder than first thought.

It...

It can't be real.

It just can't be.

He...

He can't really be...

“I know you're having, even by your usual lofty standards, a crap day,” Luther continues in the same smug, amused sounding drawl, “but you could have at least... pretended... that you were pleased to see me.”

“What?” Reluctantly opening my eyes, I gingerly straighten up and, with one hand firmly attached to the reassuring bulk of the basin, slowly turn to face him. “You might be making sense in your head,” I grind out as through sheer concentration alone I gradually bring Luther's familiar shape into focus, “but I'm telling you now that I wouldn't have a clue what...”

“The look of disappointment on your face when I walked through the door,” Luther interrupts with a shrug as he hides any concern he may be feeling for my well being behind a smirk. “I'm telling you, man, it was something else to behold. I mean, here I am in this Godforsaken sauna of a country after having come to save your ass, and...”

“What?” I know I'm repeating myself but I just don't care. Luther – assuming it really is Luther and not just figment of my over wrought imagination – isn't making any sense to me and, again, I'm just not in the mood for it. “Of course I'm pleased to see you, it's just...”

“I'm not the one you really want to be seeing,” he finishes, giving me a wry look. “Hey, I get it. I'm not saying I'm not taken aback by it, but, trust me, I get it. A man can tell when he's not wanted.”

“I don't...” Shrugging, I return to facing the basin and, turning the tap on, splash cold water on my face. “It's not that I'm not pleased to see you,” I add as, deciding against availing myself to the dirty looking towel, I let the water drip down my face and neck, “it's just that I was expecting...”

“Someone else,” Luther mutters. “Someone... shorter, and... whiter, perhaps?”

“I was going to go with... someone with painkillers and clean clothes, myself,” I retort with a sigh, “but, whatever. I have enough problems of my own at the moment without adding your considerable issues into the mix, so...”

“Relax, Ethan, I'm only messing with you,” he states, cutting me off with an unbothered smile as he pulls a clean white handkerchief out of his pocket and walks over to join me by the basin. “God knows he ain't my cup of tea, but if it's what you truly want then...” Pausing, he hands me the handkerchief and shrugs. “You could do worse.”

“I don't...”

“Save it. You do know what I'm saying so quit trying to deny it.”

“Luther...” No more up to this conversation than when he first entered the bathroom, I pat the handkerchief over my face and, while I'll admit this isn't particularly becoming of me, just wait for him to turn around and finally leave. I know what he's implying, but I can't just play along because...

… I'm still not entirely convinced that it's real.

All the signs might be pointing that way, and God knows it would actually make more sense to me than it just being all in my head for whatever, warped reason, but...

Believing it, it's just a big ask. To have something I've longed for and attributed so much weight and power to for so long now to actually be a reality? I don't... I just don't know what to make of it.

“If it helps,” Luther murmurs, closing his hand around my shoulder and giving it a warm squeeze, “it makes his motives for dropping everything to get to you a little clearer, so... Cheer up. Whatever it is the two of you are playing at, you're definitely in it together.” His piece said, he pulls his hand away and begins to walk towards the door just as it's pushed open and Will, carrying a soft leather holdall in his left hand and a bottle of water in his right, steps into the bathroom. Having discarded his grey zippered jacket since I last saw him at the table in café, he looks slimmer than I remember him from seven months ago in his black trousers and charcoal coloured v-neck t-shirt and, irrationally, I find myself having to half look away.

Finally.

So close.

Real.

What if...

… It really is all just in my head? Not the actually being here side of things, but everything else? What if... that's not real?

“He's all yours,” Luther mutters with a dry snort, clapping his hand down on Will's back as he heads past him, “but, hey, I suspect you knew that already.”

“I...” Too slow to stop the immediate, knee-jerk look of confusion crossing his face in response to Luther's comment, Will shakes his head and, without looking at either of us, makes his way over to where I'm standing, light-heated and feeling as though I'm far from being in control of myself, by the basin. “You know, I'm not even going to ask,” he states in a neutral, matter-of-fact tone as he hands me the water before dropping the bag down on to the floor and kneeling beside it.

“That...” Not liking the croaky, hesitant sound of my voice, I trail off and, as Luther gives me one final smirk over his shoulder before disappearing out of the bathroom, take a hurried sip of water as the handkerchief slips from my fingers and falls to the floow. “That... That may be for the best,” I finish weakly, transferring the bottle to my left hand in order to once again clench my right around the basin. “I...”

Dear God.

I... what... exactly?

I don't know what I'm doing?

I don't know if you're real and, while I'm at it, nor I do I know what, if anything, you can do to set me straight?

I've missed you more than I ever imagined possible?

I...

… Love you?

I just...

I honestly feel as though I don't know anything any more.

Ilsa. Is she good, bad, or undecided?

Whatever it is that's on the flash drive in Benji's pocket, should it perhaps have been left where it was?

Will...

“While I'm at it,” Will murmurs, politely glossing over my speechlessness and, in general, bunny-in-the-headlights behaviour as he retrieves a small bottle of pills from his bag and stands up, “nor am I going to waste my breath on asking just how it is you're feeling. So...” Opening the bottle, he tips two white pills into the palm of his hand and holds them out towards me. “Here. Hopefully they'll take the edge off if nothing else.”

“Will...” Everything still too confusingly raw to make sense of, let alone so much as attempt to give voice too, I dutifully take the pills from him and swallow them down with a mouthful of water. “I... Thank you.”

“You need more than just painkillers and a change of clothes, but as I know you won't listen to me...” His expression giving every indication that he feels as though he's inadvertently said too much, Will shrugs and, all the time keeping his gaze averted, crouches back down to search through the bag. “Just... Never mind. I'll do what I can to get you patched back up and... uh...” Pausing, he clenches his hand around a white t-shirt and stares down at it. “Ethan, I...” Trailing off again, he shakes his head and stands back up. “It doesn't matter.”

“I... I think it does,” I whisper, finding the strength, if not courage from somewhere to take the t-shirt from Will and throw both it and the water bottle down on to the basin before grabbing his hand in mine and just... clinging to it. 

Flesh and blood. Warm, strong, and very much... real.

I cling to his hand and all that it represents and, for the first time in months, allow myself to hope. Not in finally ending The Syndicate and putting the pieces of my life back together, but in... this. In the man squeezing his hand around mine and everything he represents. Maybe the signs I've spent the last six months convincing myself were there before events conspired to seperate us weren't there at all. Maybe, having too much time on my hands and lonely, I've built him up in my mind to be far more perfect than he really is.

Or...

Maybe, putting everything else about today aside, I really am just lucky.

Close to seven months might have passed, and a lot of things may have happened to both of us that we'll never want to talk about, but, in one way, even if it's not what he'd meant when he said it, Will's right in that it doesn't matter.

Not the time spent apart, or the reasons why or even everything that's transpired.

Just...

Now.

Right now.

Older, wiser, scarred, beaten down, as determined as ever, and blessed with a conviction that, for a fleeting moment in a fucked-up world, nothing else has to matter.

Nothing.

Not Ilsa. Not The Syndicate. Not Luther no doubt standing on the other side of the bathroom door and mentally patting himself on the back for being right. Not even how long it's taken to get to this point.

“Will...” Without being able to say, not even if my life depended on it, who it was that made the first move, I find myself slumped against Will as his arms instinctively wrap around my waist to hold me in place. Part of me, the tiny part of my brain that favours logic over all of this emotional nonsense, thinks that this, being held so tightly, should aggravate my injuries, but all I feel is a remarkable, overwhelming, even, sense of comfort. “Don't... Please don't leave me...” The words, hoarse and needy, slip out of my mouth as though I have no control over them and the same tiny part of my brain not caught up in the moment cringes in disgust at my uncharacteristic openness. “I need... If I'm going to be able to find a way to carry on, I... I need you...”

“As now really isn't the time to hit you with a lecture about how I wasn't the one who actually left,” Will murmurs with a welcome hint of humour in his voice as he gently kisses the top of my head, “you have my word, Ethan, that I'm not going anywhere, that, in fact, having finally caught up with you, I'm here to stay. I... I'm here now, I've got you, and I'm not going anywhere.”

~ end ~


End file.
